Thrilling Glider Rides

Summary: If you are looking
for thrilling glider rides, just visit a gliding club! This article outlines
some things you can request that go way beyond sedately floating around
the sky. All these things are inspired by my personal experiences as a
gliding instructor, and are quite safe when done with an experienced
pilot. So be game, and have a great time!

Think about this if you decide to visit a gliding club one day. Will
you settle for a sedate float around the sky in a sailplane, or would
you be happy to experience a little more?

Print off this
article and take it with you next time you go for a passenger flight at a
gliding club! Use one of the suggestions to spice up the flight for you
or one of your family members!

Here is a round-up of all the more
exciting things you can ask for when going for glider rides as a passenger. These ideas for thrill rides have been dredged up from many
memories of my years as a gliding instructor. I realized my passengers
and students had experienced a range of interesting little escapades.
Particularly teenager passengers, they are usually game for a thrill
ride of some kind!

Now I guess most of you reading this article
have not actually taken a ride in a glider, or sailplane as they are
sometimes called. These are the full-size planes I'm talking about, not
hang-gliders! Gliding clubs are dotted across many countries,
particularly in Europe, the U.S., Australia and South Africa. It's easy
to contact a club and simply turn up on the weekend for a passenger
flight. I won't go into prices since this varies a lot from country to
country and even club to club. But the cost is very reasonable in most
cases, for a 10 or 20 minute flight. Longer flights are possible if
weather conditions are suitable.

Winch Launches

If you can, try to get a flight at a gliding club which uses winch-launching. Yes, gliders are actually winched
into the sky on the end of a long cable. The winch is powered by a
powerful motor, often a V8, and it pulls the glider up like a giant
kite. Sometimes the cable breaks, but this is quite routine and simply
results in a short flight and a bit of inconvenience for the ground
crew! Come to think of it, these glider rides could be considered quite thrilling for an unsuspecting passenger! Firstly, the jolt when the wire
snaps. Secondly, the fairly sudden nose-down movement of the glider as
the pilot makes sure the airspeed stays up. Sudden but smooth.

Now, why are even normal
winch launches thrilling? Because you go up like a fighter jet, that's
why. The nose of the glider points skywards at an angle of 45 degrees or
so, and you reach release altitude in less than 30 seconds. Even an
experienced glider pilot tends to enjoy it time after time! I certainly
did.

An even more thrilling form of launch is rarely done now-a-days. It was called a reflex launch.
The tow rope, yes a rope not a wire or cable, had a bit of stretch in
it. It was attached to the glider's release point at one end, and the
other end was attached to a powerful car. A loop was laid out to set a
certain amount of slack in the rope, before the car went charging off
down the airstrip. TWANG. I remember seeing a Blanik L13 with 2
people on board lunge off the ground in maybe 3 meters (10 feet) and
commence climbing like a home-sick angel. Ah those were the days.

Pushing The Envelope

By 'pushing the envelope' I mean flying an aircraft a little closer to its limits than usual!

Something
to try that isn't too extreme, but still suitably thrilling for say,
your mother or grandmother, is to ask for the pilot to throw in a few really
steep turns. Gliders often need to do this anyway, to stay within the
confines of narrow patches of rising air called thermals. OK, how steep?
Try 60 or 70 degrees. That's pretty steep, it will seem like the glider
is right over on its side. What's more, mild G-forces will start to tug
at Granny's face while the glider is held in the turn, and the horizon
spins past.

Now it's Dad's turn. Let's rough him up a little more
than Granny! Ask the pilot to throw in a couple of stalls and spins.
Here's what happens in a deliberate stall. The pilot slows the glider
down by aiming the nose high and holding it there with back pressure on
the joystick. But with no engine, the glider can't climb like this for
very long. After a little while, everything goes deathly quiet as the
airspeed drops below the stall-speed of the glider. Suddenly, the nose
pitches down and Dad finds himself staring at the ground way below, and
seemingly diving straight at it! The glider builds up speed again, very
quickly, then the pilot carefully returns it to level flight again. Dad
was taken by surprise, but thinks he might just enjoy the next one!

Next,
the pilot performs a spin. Everything is the same as for the stall.
EXCEPT, just before the nose drops this time, the pilot kicks in full
rudder. The joystick is held right back against the stops. The poor
glider just refuses to fly now. A wing drops, the nose drops, the ground
is right there in front of Dad, spinning around and around and around.
The altimeter winds down, Mum on the ground wonders what it will be like
raising the kids on her own... But no problem. The pilot deftly stops
the spinning and gently pulls the glider out of the resulting dive.

Now it's The Kid's turn. He's got a wide grin on his face. Give me everything Granny and Dad had, plus more
please! The Kid is game for anything, so the instructor decides to go
through as much of the basic aerobatic repertoire as altitude allows.
Steep turns, stalls, spins, then wing-overs, loops, a slow roll, a stall
turn. A bit more tame than what you might see a Pitts Special doing at
an air-show, but The Kid loves these kinds of glider rides.

A Few Odd Things

I
just can't resist throwing in a couple of odd-ball things that I
remember doing. Firstly, the fun exercise of tossing a complete toilet
roll out the clear-vision panel of the glider. Then turning back to spot
the unraveling streamer floating down through the air. What's the
point? To chop it into bits of course, with the wing of the glider! Yes,
such fun to fly back and forth, swooping through the streamer again and
again until it's time to think about landing. I can imagine some
passengers would see some fun in it too. Perhaps.

A little trick I
used to demonstrate to my passengers from time to time was inspired by
astronaut-training. Yes, really! The 2-seater glider used to have a
microphone on a curly cord, plugged into the instrument panel. The
passenger would be asked to extend their hand, with the mic resting on
their palm. Then, after stoking the glider up to near it's maximum
speed, I would suddenly pull up into a climb. What followed next was a
demonstration of zero-G. That is, weightlessness. By easing the joystick
forward in just the right way, I could get the microphone to rise up
off the passenger's hand and hover there, weightless, for a few
seconds! If it wasn't for the harnesses, the passenger and I would have
floated around the cockpit too!

See if your friendly local gliding instructor would like to do something similar to these last two!

Conclusion

Everything
described so far is very safe when done with an experienced
pilot. In fact, some things like steep turns and stalls form part of the
standard training for glider pilots. So be game, and have a great time with thrilling glider rides!

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